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Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics

The Homeric epics are among the greatest masterpieces of literature, but when they were produced is not known with certainty. Here we apply evolutionary-linguistic phylogenetic statistical methods to differences in Homeric, Modern Greek and ancient Hittite vocabulary items to estimate a date of appr...

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Autores principales: Altschuler, Eric Lewin, Calude, Andreea S, Meade, Andrew, Pagel, Mark
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: WILEY-VCH Verlag 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654165/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23417708
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.201200165
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author Altschuler, Eric Lewin
Calude, Andreea S
Meade, Andrew
Pagel, Mark
author_facet Altschuler, Eric Lewin
Calude, Andreea S
Meade, Andrew
Pagel, Mark
author_sort Altschuler, Eric Lewin
collection PubMed
description The Homeric epics are among the greatest masterpieces of literature, but when they were produced is not known with certainty. Here we apply evolutionary-linguistic phylogenetic statistical methods to differences in Homeric, Modern Greek and ancient Hittite vocabulary items to estimate a date of approximately 710–760 BCE for these great works. Our analysis compared a common set of vocabulary items among the three pairs of languages, recording for each item whether the words in the two languages were cognate – derived from a shared ancestral word – or not. We then used a likelihood-based Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure to estimate the most probable times in years separating these languages given the percentage of words they shared, combined with knowledge of the rates at which different words change. Our date for the epics is in close agreement with historians' and classicists' beliefs derived from historical and archaeological sources.
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spelling pubmed-36541652013-05-17 Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics Altschuler, Eric Lewin Calude, Andreea S Meade, Andrew Pagel, Mark Bioessays Insights & Perspectives The Homeric epics are among the greatest masterpieces of literature, but when they were produced is not known with certainty. Here we apply evolutionary-linguistic phylogenetic statistical methods to differences in Homeric, Modern Greek and ancient Hittite vocabulary items to estimate a date of approximately 710–760 BCE for these great works. Our analysis compared a common set of vocabulary items among the three pairs of languages, recording for each item whether the words in the two languages were cognate – derived from a shared ancestral word – or not. We then used a likelihood-based Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure to estimate the most probable times in years separating these languages given the percentage of words they shared, combined with knowledge of the rates at which different words change. Our date for the epics is in close agreement with historians' and classicists' beliefs derived from historical and archaeological sources. WILEY-VCH Verlag 2013-05 2013-02-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3654165/ /pubmed/23417708 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.201200165 Text en Copyright © 2013 WILEY Periodicals, Inc. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ Re-use of this article is permitted in accordance with the Creative Commons Deed, Attribution 2.5, which does not permit commercial exploitation.
spellingShingle Insights & Perspectives
Altschuler, Eric Lewin
Calude, Andreea S
Meade, Andrew
Pagel, Mark
Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics
title Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics
title_full Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics
title_fullStr Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics
title_full_unstemmed Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics
title_short Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics
title_sort linguistic evidence supports date for homeric epics
topic Insights & Perspectives
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3654165/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23417708
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.201200165
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